ANN ARBOR -- Several months before Nik Stauskas ever showed up in Ann Arbor in 2012, I called him for a story and asked a simple question.

"How do you spell your name?"

The question seems ridiculous on the surface, but the fact was, various recruiting sites spelled his name differently -- there was no consistency.

Some spelled it "Nik." Others went with "Nick."

So, when we had finished talking, I asked him.

"How do you spell your name?"

"N-i-k," he said, which is short for Nikolas.

"You do realize these sites have been spelling your name wrong for, like, a few years now, right?"

"Yeah, but it's whatever."

It's whatever? I remember thinking, if it were me, I'd be calling all these guys and making sure they knew how to spell my damn name. I mean, come on, it's three letters. And it's your first name, for crying out loud.

At last season's team awards banquet, Michigan jokingly awarded Stauskas with one of the team's mock awards as the player most obsessed with the NBA, and the one who has the most knowledge about the league and its stars and who won a random West Coast game between two teams no one cares about on a Tuesday night in December.

If it's basketball, he's interested.

So it was no real surprise a month later, when school ended, Stauskas stayed in Ann Arbor. He stayed with Caris LeVert, all spring and all summer.

And he worked. Over. And over. And over. And over. Every day. In the weight room and on the court. It was all basketball, all the time.

"A lot of times we'd start off pretty early in the morning, 7, 7:30, we'd have a tough hour and a half lift," he said Monday. "We did upper body, we did core, we did Olympic lifts for our legs. Then we'd go to class. Then we'd go back to the gym. Then we'd get treatment.

"And sometimes, we'd go back for a second time that night."

Stauskas didn't just transform his body in the offseason, adding roughly 15 pounds of muscle, he transformed his game. His mind. And everything else.

Just like Trey Burke the offseason before, Stauskas was handed a list of things he needed to work on -- and one by one, he went down the check list. Not because someone told him to, but because it's all he knew how to do.

He worked on his ball-handling. He worked on his mid-range game. He worked on finishing at the basket. He worked on his passing. He worked at creating space. He worked on moving away from the ball. He worked at being able to play three different positions in John Beilein's system.

Then, he took all of that, and added it to the skill he'd worked at his entire life -- his long-range jump shot.

And when Michigan lost Mitch McGary to a back injury in December and was in need of an offensive focal point, Stauskas wasn't nervous or scared -- he was licking his chops.

In the end, Stauskas became a sort of Burke-Darius Morris hybrid for John Beilein's offense this season. Along with LeVert, he was Michigan's best shot-creator. And alone, he was the team's best player when it came to playing off Beilein's high-post screen and roll game.

When Michigan needed to run offense, it went through Stauskas. When Michigan needed a shot-clock time make, it went to Stauskas. When Michigan needed someone to hit a big foul shot, the ball went to Stauskas.

Stauskas put up 17.4 points per game this season. He took 155 3-pointers and made 71 of them. He shot 49 percent from the floor -- as a guard, and he did it all as a marked man. Teams schemed to stop Stauskas, just like they schemed to stop Burke the year before.

And, more often than not, they failed.

He finished No. 1 on the team in assists with 3.4 per game. And, believe it or not, he was third on the team in steals and third on the team in blocked shots.

With rare exceptions, Stauskas was able to do everything Beilein asked him to this season. When he was off, Michigan was off. When he was locked in, Michigan wasn't losing. They didn't lose much, in case you're new around here, going 15-3 in the league and winning the conference by three full games.

This stuff doesn't happen by accident. Stauskas was blessed with offensive skill, no doubt. But it was his will, his work ethic, his dedication to the sport he loves that ended up bringing him a player of the year trophy Monday.